Disaster recovery on the cheap

The Alabama Criminal JusticeInformation Center (ACJIC) wasstuck between a rock and a hardplace. On one hand, the information itkept track of was being requestedaround the clock by police officers,correction officials and others. On theother, the center had little money tospend on extras, such as measures toensure disaster recovery.

But managers found that, with somecreative thinking, they could not onlyget a disaster recovery plan with limitedfunds but also improve theuptime of their service.

Started in 1975, ACJIC serves asthe information hub for all the criminaljustice data collected by the state.The system performs 18 milliontransactions per month for as manyas 15,000 people a day. Not bad, consideringonly 10 people run the show.

As the operation got ramped up, onemissing piece that became increasinglyevident was disaster recovery.

'Disaster recovery has not always beenon the forefront of state governmentbecause of budgetary restraints,'Mitchell said. 'Everyone is just strugglingto get operations done.'

The organization did have tape backupsof the data itself. But even small disruptionscould stop operations.

'Five years ago ... we had one rack withthree servers sitting in the hallways atthe administrative offices, under a sprinklersystem,' said Jeff Matthews, ITdirector at the center.

Also, the system was run from a statemainframe in Montgomery.

What to do? One option would be toconsider companies that offered commercialbackup services.

That would be a costly approach, however' as much as $90,000 per year.Instead, Mitchell and his crew cobbledtogether their own recovery plan.They found another state agency withsome extra rack space it was willing torent out for around $12,000 a year,where ACJIC could house its backupserver, an ES7000 from Unisys, and a20 T storage area network.

The center also deployed backup softwareto duplicate the data inMontgomery. 'Once we got the solutionin place, it didn't cost a lot,' Mitchell said.

How did the center get the additionalmoney for the disaster recovery setup?By appealing to the other agencies thatused the service, Mitchell said. Theagencies saw how such continual servicewould benefit their own operations, sothey all agreed to chip in to maintain thebackup services.

About the Author

Joab Jackson is the senior technology editor for Government Computer News.